Professor
Patrick Keyzer

Professor Patrick Keyzer

Professor of Law and Public Policy
Faculty of Law and Business

Areas of expertise: constitutional law; human rights; access to justice; criminal justice; risk management.

Phone: 03 9953 3539

Email: Patrick.Keyzer@acu.edu.au

Location: ACU Melbourne Campus

HDR Supervisor accreditation status: HDR Supervisor (Full)

Patrick Keyzer is a lawyer practising in human rights, constitutional law, with a scholarly interest in access to international justice, justice for people in detention, the right to rehabilitation, and risk management more generally. He is a member of the Human Rights Panel of the Queensland Parliament, and regularly advises government and non-government clients in public law and policy matters. Keyzer has represented prisoners in the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the Committee Against Torture, in Australia's High Court, and in many of Australia's Supreme Courts and Courts of Appeal.

Keyzer was shortlisted for an Australian Human Rights Award in 2010. He has won five teaching awards, including a University Teaching Award. His pro bono and clinical work has received national and international awards.

Keyzer has published 28 books and is currently working on two more. The first critically analyses Australia's record of non-compliance with decisions of the United Nations Human Rights Committee. The other is a narrative non-fiction biography of one of his former clients, who was deported from Australia on "character grounds". Keyzer is part of an international team of lawyers and students who are preparing UN communications for about 20 other people deported from Australia in this way.

Keyzer is also currently a chief investigator on a major, externally funded research project examining climate justice in Indonesia. He is working with international colleagues on projects involving human rights and artificial intelligence, dignity rights, the teaching of constitutional law (as an object of scholarly interest in its own right) and law school pro bono programs (ditto).

Website

Google Scholar

Projects

• KONEKSI, Restorasi: Climate Justice and Restorative Justice for Indigenous People, Women and People with Disability in Indonesia ($350K) (Chief Investigator) (2023-4)

• An Indigenous Pre-Law, Pre-Criminal Justice and Pre-Human Rights Program for the Thomas More Law School, HEPPP, ($87K), (Chief Investigator) (2023-4)

• Sports Medicine Australia, Research on Concussion Risk in Professional Boxing and Combat Sports, ($12K), (Chief Investigator) (2021-2)

• Medibank Better Health Foundation and the La Trobe University Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Research Focus Area, Barriers to coaches of adolescent female soccer teams, in Victoria, Australia, implementing the evidence-based FIFA 11+ injury prevention programme, ($25K), 2019-2020.

• Data to Decisions Cooperative Research Centre, Compliance by Design and Compliance through Design Research Project, Summary Legal and Technical Report on Spent Convictions, 2019.

• The History of Disability Services in NSW, NSW Department of FACS ($100K) (Lead Chief Investigator), 2016-7.

• Transforming Human Societies Research Focus Area Scheme, Ethical Issues in Using the Internet and Social Media to Recruit Research Participants, ($25K), 2015

• ARC Linkage Project, Risk Management in the Australian Fitness Industry (2012-2014), Lead Chief Investigator ($388K)

• ARC Discovery Project, The Preventive Detention of HighiRisk Offenders (2009-2011), Chief Investigator ($270K)

• Queensland LPITAF Project, Legal Service Options for Ageing Carers of People with Intellectual Disability (2006-2008), Lead Chief Investigator, ($154K over two stages)

• ARC Discovery Project, The Offshore Processing of Asylum Seekers: The Search for Legitimate Parameters (2006-2007), Chief Investigator ($220K)

• Criminology Research Council Grant, Preventive Detention for 'Dangerousness' in Australia (2006), Chief Investigator ($64K)

• Commonwealth Department of Health Disability Services Subcommittee Grant (1994) ($27K)

Awards

• Australian Human Rights Award (shortlisted, 2010).

• University Teaching Award (UTS, 2003).

• Law Students Society Teaching Awards (2007, 2010).

• Business Higher Education Roundtable Award (2017).

• President of the Australasian Law Teachers Association (2015-6).

• Queensland Convenor, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (2012).

• Victorian Convenor, Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (2015).

• Vice-Chancellor's Community Engagement Award (2023).

• Uniservitate Award (Pro Bono Program at ACU) (2024).

Appointments and Affiliations

• Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.

• Law Society of New South Wales.

• Bar Association of New South Wales (1998-2021).

• Australian Association of Constitutional Law (2008-2011).

International journal review panels

• Psychiatry, Psychology and Law.

Grant agency review panels

• Canadian Social Science Research Council (once).

• Australian Research Council (for many years).

Public engagement

• Extensive and varied across every type of media. This can be accessed by plugging my name into any internet search browser.

• Host, "Section 71: High Court Cases That Changed Australia", Australian Broadcasting Corporation History Listen Program.

• Director of the Community Broadcasting Foundation.